Before a recent breakfast speech to the City Club of Chicago, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez opted to walk in through the kitchen to avoid a group of sidewalk protesters out front who were angrily chanting about her handling of the Laquan McDonald police shooting case.

Later that day, protesters interrupted a domestic violence forum where Alvarez appeared with her two challengers. They chanted "16 shots and a cover-up," a reference to the number of times McDonald was shot by police, and they handed out comics titled "10 Things You Hate About Anita," featuring illustrated examples of their complaints with how she has run the office.

The protests have made a difficult re-election campaign even tougher for Alvarez.

"It disrupts whatever event I'm at, for sure," said Alvarez, who called the protests "a politically driven diversion" orchestrated at least in part by backers of challenger Kim Foxx.

A prosecutor of three decades, Alvarez has tried to counter the political firestorm by arguing that the most important issue facing voters in the March 15 Democratic primary is not the McDonald case, but Chicago's unremitting violence and who is best equipped to handle the fallout.

"As you know, there are very many important issues to debate in this race for Cook County state's attorney, but I think that the No. 1 issue that we need to discuss is violent crime and the horrific crime rate here in the city of Chicago," Alvarez said during the City Club speech.

Alvarez's success or failure in her bid for a third term may hinge on whether Democratic voters agree with her about the need for an experienced law-and-order state's attorney to combat violence, or with protesters and her opponents who say she has to go because of problems with the McDonald investigation, her failures on other high-profile cases and an unwillingness to embrace more progressive policies.

Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez looks to secure a third term as the county's chief prosecutor.

For Alvarez, this is the first time since she won a rough-and-tumble six-way race to succeed retiring State's Attorney Richard Devine in 2008 that she faces a strongly contested election. Challengers Foxx and Donna More are hammering her relentlessly for taking more than a year to charge white Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke with murder in the 2014 death of black teen McDonald, putting Alvarez in the position of repeatedly defending the investigation while trying to cast her foes as political opportunists.

Even before the McDonald case, Alvarez already faced displeasure from some African-American elected officials. They'd been critical of her before the 2012 primary, saying she had failed to reach out to the black community, but they didn't field a challenger. The animosity increased in some quarters following Judge Dennis Porter's April 2015 acquittal of white Chicago police Officer Dante Servin in the shooting death of Rekia Boyd, a 22-year-old African-American woman.

In his ruling, Porter said Alvarez's decision to charge Servin with involuntary manslaughter for killing Boyd when he fired into a crowd in March 2012 tied the judge's hands because Servin did not act recklessly. Pointing a gun at someone and firing is an intentional act, Porter ruled, implying Alvarez should instead have charged Servin with first-degree murder.

Critics said Alvarez fumbled the case. Alvarez said Porter engaged in "legal gymnastics" to let Servin off, and insisted she proceeded with the charges she believed her office could win.

Alvarez also has drawn criticism for other high-profile incidents. During a 2012 "60 Minutes" story on wrongful convictions in Chicago, she was portrayed as insensitive to the ability of DNA evidence to exonerate defendants.

At one point, Alvarez suggested necrophilia could explain DNA linking a serial rapist to the 1991 murder of a 14-year-old girl in Dixmoor, a crime for which five teens were wrongly convicted. Alvarez said she simply responded to the "60 Minutes" reporter bringing up the necrophilia possibility that previously had been used in the case, and said her response was used out of context when the show aired.

If I wasn't in the middle of an election, would I still be getting criticized? I think the answer is no.— Anita Alvarez, on the ongoing criticism she receives related to her handling of the Laquan McDonald shooting

And Alvarez has faced criticism for her handling of the re-investigation of the 2004 death of David Koschman. In 2012, a judge handed the case over to a special prosecutor, who secured a guilty plea to involuntary manslaughter from Richard Vanecko, nephew of former Mayor Richard M. Daley, in Koschman's death. Judge Michael Toomin criticized Alvarez for seeking to "denigrate the evidence against Vanecko" and going out of her way to find "legal justification for Vanecko's use of deadly force."

A group of attorneys also recently called for a special prosecutor in the McDonald case, one that's shaken Chicago's political foundations.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel was pilloried for delaying the release of police dash-cam video of Van Dyke shooting McDonald until well after he was re-elected last year, while Alvarez found herself the focus of intense criticism for how long it took her to charge Van Dyke. The charges came more than a year after the shooting and just hours before the court-ordered release of the video.

Chicago seethed with mass protests late last year as marchers called for Emanuel and Alvarez to be removed from office. But few elected officials took up the call for the mayor's ouster. And while occasional protests continue, the rallies that were near-daily occurrences outside Emanuel's City Hall office in November and December have petered out.

Alvarez, on the other hand, was on the cusp of what was already shaping up to be a tough re-election fight, with Democratic Party officials split on whether to back her or Foxx even before the McDonald video cast the incumbent in a harsh light. That has offered Cook County's political class a clear opportunity to step away from Alvarez.

"My point was the following: Laquan McDonald, there wasn't fairness, there wasn't justice for him," Democratic U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez said in January of his decision not to support Alvarez after having done so in the past. "I thought her office took just too long, 14 months." Gutierrez has endorsed Foxx instead.

After opting in August not to endorse, county Democratic committeemen reconsidered and threw their support behind Foxx in January at the behest of County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who's backing Foxx, her former chief of staff.

The impending election has provided those angered by her handling of the McDonald shooting a clear goal. Protesters at the City Club displayed a banner reading "Anita Alvarez Must Go — Vote March 15."

At the City Club, Alvarez tried to make light of the situation, painting the small crowd outside as being made up of young people who often turn up at her events.

"You know, I see the same group of people and I've gotten to know them, so as a mother I hope we can maybe give them some to-go bags to make sure they eat today," she said.

Alvarez pointed to the campaign to explain the ongoing criticism she faces for McDonald. "If I wasn't in the middle of an election, would I still be getting criticized? I think the answer is no," she said.

Alvarez has keyed in on her experience, releasing a list of about 200 public employees and law enforcement officers who have been prosecuted during her time in office. Many of those she charged were low-level employees accused of theft or police officers charged with drunken driving or official misconduct.

The two-term state's attorney has been able to raise some money to get her campaign message on TV. Her political fund had nearly $700,000 to start the year, and she has reported tens of thousands of dollars more in the weeks since, much of it from construction trade unions and lawyers and law firms her office deals with in court. She and husband, Dr. James Gomez, also recently lent the campaign $200,000.

"The final decision is not going to be in the hands of politicians or party bosses," Alvarez said at the City Club. "The final decision is going to be left in the capable hands of the hardworking men, women and families of Cook County, who put a high value on public safety, and who demand honest answers from candidates running for important elected positions."

To some extent, Alvarez found herself in a similar political fight before and reacted much the same way.

The 2008 primary election saw Alvarez as one of six Democrats in the first open election for the office in 40 years. The county party declined to make an endorsement, as did Daley and other top Democratic officials, contributing to the chaotic vibe of the campaign.

Alvarez was a 21-year veteran prosecutor then, which other candidates seized on in arguing that she was part of an office culture that went easy on police misconduct and treated minorities unfairly. Opponents pointed out former police Cmdr. Jon Burge had escaped charges while Alvarez worked in the office despite allegations that he and detectives under his command engaged in widespread torture of African-American men.

At the time, 21st Ward Ald. Howard Brookins Jr., a fellow state's attorney hopeful, said he wanted to restore minorities' trust in the office by "(showing) the people ... that we will call the balls and strikes fairly."

Alvarez got few endorsements eight years ago, but repeated her argument that the office is too important to be trusted to a political insider who she said might use it to punish enemies or protect friends, warning at one point about the "true danger in handing this over to someone who will make charging decisions for political reasons."

Despite her long tenure, Alvarez argued she wasn't an insider and played up her position as the only woman and sole Hispanic vying for the nomination. She pointed to the fact she was a mother with four children, and parlayed that mixture of experience and fresh-faced newness into a primary win with about 26 percent of the vote.

Now she's running on her record and experience, which she acknowledged can be a double-edged sword.

"People pick things to criticize me on when neither of my opponents have experience," Alvarez said. "What's important is that voters know about my experience, what I've been doing for the last 29 years, almost 30 years now, in this office. In many ways (the criticism) is unfair."

Anita Alvarez

Current job: Cook County state's attorney, 2008-present

Age: 56

Born in: Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood

Lives in: River Forest

Personal: Married to James Gomez, four children

Previous positions: Assistant Cook County state's attorney

Education:Loyola University, B.S. in social work, 1982; Chicago-Kent College of Law, J.D., 1986

A version of this article appeared in print on March 06, 2016, in the News section of the Chicago Tribune with the headline "McDonald case looms large for Alvarez - Voters' views on handling of police shooting may seal fate" —
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